Tarot
by Broken Gold
Summary: Ginny promptly bursts into a fit of laughter and Lavender drops the card onto the table in front of Seamus allowing him to see it. “The Lovers?” asks Seamus incredulously. “Seriously?” One-shot. LavenderxSeamus DeanxParvati


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**I own nothing recognizable.**

**Inspired by Nicole. No seriously, I was going through the photos of my birthday party and I remembered how I hadn't gotten a chance to read your tarot cards, and then I remembered our conversation about the lack of LavenderxSeamus fics and I was sort of like, "Oh, hey!"**

**Right, ANs not included this is 3004 words. :D**

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Seamus wonders why he agreed to come to this reunion.

He wonders why on Earth he wanted to spend the first week of August in Hogwarts, even though it's only the first night. He supposes it's because he's never with everyone at the same time anymore.

The entirety of Dumbledore's Army, along with the rest of the people who fought on Harry Potter's side in the war (even Draco Malfoy, who for some strange reason found it necessary to save Dennis Creevey from a Death Eater when everyone thought Harry was dead) are swarming around him, laughing and chatting amiably. His old crush (alright, so maybe he's lying a little with both of those words) Lavender Brown sits at the table trying her hand at reading muggle tarot cards, the group of girls around her is roaring with laughter at the ridiculous predictions that the charmless, plastic rectangles make while up on the 'stage' (the professor's table in the great hall) Alicia Spinnet is belting her newest single at the top of her lungs while her band of friends play their instruments around her. She's really quite good and he's glad to hear her voice on the Wizarding Wireless every day. It reminds him of school.

"Seamus, come and dance!" A tall, Indian girl who's dark eyes are sparkling grabs his arm and pulls him towards a large space in front of the band where a space has been cleared for just that.

"Parvati," Seamus groans. "You know I've got less co-ordination than a dying bullfrog. Can't Dean dance with you?"

Parvati rolls her eyes and pulls him onto the floor. "No."

"You should ask him," Seamus shakes his sandy brown hair out of his eyes and gives her a knowing smile. "He'd like that."

Parvati reddens a little punches him playfully and as she does her flowing green sleeves slide up, revealing the pale scar the circles around her wrist and then curls up her forearm, the only thing that makes her different from her twin sister.

_Would have made her different,_ Seamus thinks, catching himself. _Padma's gone…_

Seamus grabs her arm and traces part of the scar. "You didn't heal it?"

"It's dark magic," says Parvati, "I couldn't heal it, even if I wanted to." The sparkle dies in her eyes for a moment and Seamus wishes he hadn't brought it up. Hadn't brought up the curse that grazed one girl, but hit the other right in the neck…

"I'm sorry," he murmurs. "I shouldn't have-"

"It's alright," Parvati says and all of a sudden that damn sparkle is back in her eyes. "We're supposed to remember tonight, but we're supposed to be celebrating as well." She places his hands on her waist and lightly drops her own onto his shoulders and begins to force him to dance with her, moving them in circles quickly, her black hair flying about as he tries to keep up with her.

They dance three songs, talking and laughing like the best of friends, which of course, they are now, since the war. Fighting together has forced them to become just that.

"Dean's coming," mutters Seamus. He let's go of her. "Go on, ask him to dance."

Parvati shakes her head nervously. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"I'm too scared."

"Parvati," Seamus says, "I'm not sure if you've realized, but you fought four death eaters at once and _won_."

"Boys are scarier," Parvati answers calmly, causing Seamus to raise an eyebrow. "Don't give me that look, Seamus Finnegan!" He continues to stare at her. "I will not-"

"Hey, guys," A tall, dark-skinned boy stands behind Parvati and Seamus bites back a laugh when he sees her eyes widen. "What's up?"

"Hey, Dean," says Seamus with a grin at Parvati. "I was actually just going to go sit down, but Parvati was wondering if you wanted to dance."

At this point Parvati is frantically mouthing things like: _No!, Shut up, Seamus!_ and _You idiot, I am going to kill you_.

Dean looks surprised, but pleased. "Sure, there's a new song starting anyways." He takes a shocked looking Parvati's hand and pulls her further onto the dance floor where she starts grinning like a lunatic. Seamus smiles as Alicia starts a slow song and the two of them begin swaying slowly on the spot and turning round in a circle, surveying the dance floor he can see Katie Bell and Oliver Wood, her head resting on his shoulder and him looking like he's just won the lottery.

George Weasley owes him a galleon. He knew they'd end up together.

"Seamus!" His heart leaps into his throat. "Get over here and let me read your fortune."

Turning slowly he sees Lavender Brown smiling radiantly at him. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail and her blue eyes are shining. "Come on!"

Seamus shifts nervously. In Fourth Year when he'd asked her to the Yule Ball he'd told Dean it was because he would rather have gone with her than let her go with the Durmstrang boy that he'd noticed staring at her since he didn't trust that school. Dean, of course, hadn't believed him and did not shut up about it for nearly a month.

"Alright!" He calls. As he walks over to where she sits, surrounded by laughing girls at what was usually the Gryffindor table, Seamus notices the thin, pale scars dancing across her porcelain features like an beautiful, intricate design and feels a stab of hatred for the werewolf who gave them to her. (Upon hearing what had happened he had decided to confront Fenrir Greyback when Voldemort brought the battle back to Hogwarts, at which point he had promptly attacked him, dueled him, narrowly avoided being killed by him, and turned him into a cactus wearing an embarrassing, red cowboy's hat.)

"Right then Seamus," Lavender says as he sits down on the bench in front of her. "Shuffle your cards and then cut them." She hands him a pile of cards with a muggle photograph of stars on the back. As he follows her orders Seamus glances up at the ones shown in the Great Hall's ceiling and can't help but think that it's ten times more wonderful in here.

"Done," he says, handing the cards back to Lavender. A little electric shock runs through his arm when his hands brush against her perfectly manicured fingers.

"Here we go then," she gives him a little smile and pulls the top card off of the pile. "This is the card that represents you." She glances down at it and then lets out a little giggle before showing it to the redhead who sits next to her (_Ginny Weasley_, Seamus realizes. _I have to pay more attention to these things_). Ginny promptly bursts into a fit of laughter and Lavender drops the card onto the table in front of Seamus allowing him to see it.

"The Lovers?" asks Seamus incredulously. "Seriously?"

Lavender smiles at him. She's wearing pink lip gloss. "Well, Mr. Finnegan, it appears that you are love blessed by Cupid."

Seamus stares at her blankly as the girls around her dissolve into a synchronized round of giggles. "That's nice…"

Lavender smiles kindly at him. "This card is what you want to arrive at," she lifts it up and looks at it before frowning and placing it above the first one. "That's the Six of Cups."

"Meaning?" Seamus prompts.

"Childbirth," says Lavender flatly, and it's all Seamus can do not to go as red as a lobster and hit his head against the dark, wooden table repeatedly.

"Of course," he mutters dryly. "What more could a nineteen year old boy want?"

Lavender doesn't answer. Instead she pulls the other card off of the pile. She raises an eyebrow and Seamus waits uncomfortably as the girls around her stare at him as if they've never seen anything like him before. "Oh…"

"Oh?" Seamus says uneasily. "What does 'oh' mean?"

"The seven of swords," Lavender tells him, placing it below the first two cards so that they now sit in a neat little line. "It means that there's a lot of love in your life that can slip away, but it's represented in your past so…"

"I'm still in love," Seamus blurts out before he can stop himself. _Oh, wow. Way to go Professor Smooth. You should write a book._

"Ooooooh!" The girls around Lavender are squealing and laughing, but he isn't paying attention to them. Lavender's placed another smile on her face, but it isn't the beautiful smile he loves so much. It seems fake somehow. It looks painted. There's something in her eyes that looks like-

"Defeat," Lavender says as she slams a card down with a little more force than necessary."

"Sorry?" asks Seamus.

"The five of swords," Lavender studies her pale pink nail polish and doesn't meet his eyes. "It means defeat."

Ginny points to the card. "In that spot it means it's from your past, but it's going to affect your future."

"It means somebody defeating me?" Asks Seamus. "Could it be me defeating somebody else."

"I suppose," says Lavender crisply, getting ready to pluck the next card from the deck.

Seamus bites his lip for a moment and the summons up his courage. "Could it mean Fenrir Greyback?" Lavender's head snaps up. "I turned him into a cactus," he confesses. "After I found out what he did to you."

"Really?" Lavender says, and it's barley more than a whisper. Her eyes soften and then- "Yes, well," she pulls the card off the pile, "that's very brave of you. Thank you, Seamus." She places the card down to the left of the others so that they now form a sort of cross. "Here, look, you've got the Queen of Cups in your future. A beautiful woman." She gives a half smile. "Looks like you're going to do very well for yourself."

Ginny's giving the two of them an odd look and she gets up from the table. "Come on girls, let's let Lavender finish up on her own. Astoria's just come in and look who she's talking to."

As her friends get up to giggle and gossip and tease Astoria and Draco Lavender stares down at the table and begins tracing the lines in the wood. She's grown up, Seamus realizes. She's not the same ditzy, bubbly, flighty girl she used to be, but he doesn't mind at the moment. He's sure if they were on their own without the burdens from the war she could be herself again.

"You don't have to finish," he says finally. "Muggle tarot cards are a load of rot anyways, there's no charms on them."

"Thanks, Seamus," she says. "I'll just clean these up and then-"

"Do you want to take a walk in the courtyard?" He asks suddenly, surprising himself. "I mean, the sky's almost clear and it's nice out, so we could enjoy the fresh air and-"

"Sure," Lavender cuts in and rescues him from his incessant babbling. "It's much too warm in here anyways."

Seamus thinks this is complete rubbish, but he doesn't believe his luck so he helps her clear up anyways.

Once they're out in the courtyard Seamus leads Lavender over to a stone bench and they sit down on it. When Lavender tilts her head up too look at the vast, endless expanse of stars sparkling in the night sky above them Seamus swallows and shifts nervously, trying not to do anything stupid.

"So," says Lavender. She's broken five minutes worth of silence. "You went after a werewolf for me, huh?"

Seamus' eyes flit over to her. She's still looking at the sky. "Yeah, of course. I'd have done it even if it were Voldemort." Surprise flies up through her features and she snaps her gaze towards him. "I mean," he clears his throat. "Anyone would've. Even Granger, she saved you from him, you know."

"Yes, I know." Lavender laughs quietly. "She came to see me in the Hospital Wing, you know. Her and Ron."

Seamus twitches a little at the mention of Ronald Weasley. More than two years later and it still hurts to conjure up the image of the two of them, mouths glued together, her back pressed against the stonewalls of the third floor corridor…

"I think we might be friends one day," Lavender sighs. "I mean, the two of us… We didn't really have much chemistry romantically."

"It sure seemed like you did," Seamus mutters. Unfortunately Lavender hears him.

"I don't know if you really noticed, Seamus, but it was all snogging." She tilts her head back and lets out her beautiful, floaty, tinkling laugh. "We never even had one decent conversation, and what's really sad is that that's probably the last boyfriend I'll ever have." Her smile fades and is replaced by a grimace and the scars on her face are thrown into sharp relief when the small whispy clouds that have been covering the moon fade away. "Nobody wants me now. Since I'm not pretty."

Seamus seriously considers knocking himself out to escape the pain that hearing her say that has inflicted upon him. "Of course you aren't pretty, Lav."

Genuine hurt sparkles in her eyes and she turns her head back to the sky and crosses her arms. "Well thanks, Finnegan. That's exactly what I-"

"No wait, that's not what I mean," Seamus says hurriedly. He scoots closer to her and tentatively puts an arm around her shoulders. When she doesn't immediately push him away he takes it as a good sign and says. "You aren't pretty, Lavender, you're beautiful."

She looks shocked. "But my scars-"

"I love your scars," says Seamus. "I mean, no, that's not what I meant. I think it's terrible that Greyback tore you up and, I mean, you were definitely nice-looking before as well, but I mean-"

He is cut off when Lavender leans towards him quickly and kisses him.

When she pulls back he stares at her with a dazed expression and she smiles sweetly at him before getting to her feet. "I'll see you at breakfast, Seamus." She gives him one last dazzling grin and then turns and skips of towards the castle.

He raises his hands to his tingling lips. Did that just _happen_?

As Lavender opens the doors to the castle light spills out onto the courtyard and Parvati and Dean push past her, running and laughing and holding hands. They stop under a statue of a phoenix and Dean leans down and presses his lips against Parvati's quickly. She stares at him for a moment and then throws her arms around him and kisses him full on the mouth.

Looking down at the bench Seamus realizes that a single tarot card has fallen out of Lavender's purse and is sitting on the bench beside him. He lifts it up and turns it over and has to fight the urge to laugh.

It's The Lovers.

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When Seamus Finnegan stands on platform Nine and Three Quarters nineteen years after the battle and eighteen years after the reunion he places a kiss on the top of his daughter's head and then crouches down in front of her. "Alright, Marley," he says, "this is it."

Marley stares at him with her big brown eyes (which are his as well, he's pleased to say). "Hogwarts is fun isn't it?" She asks nervously.

"Lots of fun," he tells her. "It's where I first met your mother."

"Seamus!" Lavender scolds him. "Don't tell her that! She'll be off looking for her future husband."

He stands up and straight and pouts a little. "Oh come on, Lav. She's eleven. She doesn't like boys all that much, do you, Marls?"

But Marley is ignoring him and staring passed him. "Who's that?" She asks pointing her finger, which has been painted with pale pink nail polish. Seamus turns round and follows her gaze to where Harry Potter is speaking to his nervous looking son.

"That's Harry Potter's son Albus," he tells her. "Why?"

Marley goes a brilliant shade of red that contrasts fantastically with her blonde hair and mutters, "He's cute."

Seamus' jaw drops and Lavender laughs. "That's my girl." She smiles. "Just like her mother."

Seamus resists the urge to kill himself.

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**Um, OK, so that was really bad... Please R and R to tell me what you think I can improve.**

**Oh, and about the tarot definitions. Different sources and cards say different things, so if it looks wrong to you, that's why. XD  
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